January 25th, 2008

Early morning, sun's just risen (while I was driving - blinding in my rear view!), and I'm steeling myself to step out of the car and face the frosty cold... and my first day as a college professor.

(Pretty frickin' cool, actually.)

January 24th, 2008

Why, yes, you may call me "Professor..."


Finished my syllabi tonight for two classes, both of which start tomorrow. Thankfully, it's the same class over and over, just offered three different times over the course of three days a week. "What class?" you may ask. Well, it may not be what I'd think to do first, but as I've got an uncle in Computer Science, not in English, I'm not in a position to be picky...

January 23rd, 2008

"POP" goes the Evan...

Tough to catch him and have the picture come out clear - he moves so much, so fast, me and my camera can't keep up!

January 22nd, 2008

Trying to maximize my sleep (though Ambien CR is still my bestest friend) - found myself in the land of pillows at JC Penney today. Bins and shelves of sacks of fluff, in all different degrees of softness. Who knew there were that many potential pillows? Finally grabbed two, out of sheer desperation and an inability to figure out what would feel "best." Testing time....

January 21st, 2008

Organization might be your friend, but it isn't usually mine. Or Brian's. We spent the whole day going through the contents of the bathroom cabinets, tossing old stuff, organizing what was left. Now our meds are all in the medicine cabinet, our first aid stuff is all in one place, and we can even fit packages of toilet paper under the sink. Imagine that!

January 20th, 2008

Wow.

This isn't the Manning who was expected to be Super Bowl this year. Talk about a big surprise!

January 19th, 2008

Know how nights seem especially dark sometimes in winter? This was one of those extra-dark ones... snapped this while waiting for the (rather chilled) curbside take-out guy to bring my food to the car. Even with my headlights pointing right at it, you can hardly tell the brown background of the sign from the surrounding blackness of night...

January 18th, 2008

Sending those packages overseas, to soldiers (airmen, marines) I'll never meet face-to-face, that builds up some good karma. Now, I don't want to come off as falsely altruistic - I do find pleasure in giving without expectation of return. But that lack of expectation makes what does come back to me that much more valuable. I think it is SO cool to hear back from the people to whom I send letters and packages.


This particular guy, in charge of 60 Army pilots & such who've been serving in Iraq, has taken the time to write back, detailed letters that give me a sense of the people on the receiving end of my packages. He also was thoughtful enough to load this cd up with photos of his men (and handful of women) going about their daily tasks. I couldn't wait to pop this into my laptop and see!

January 17th, 2008

This caught me by surprise as I trekked across the campus of the College of Staten Island. I had no idea they'd put up a memorial, though it certainly makes sense - especially when you consider the tons of rubble trucked along the Staten Island Expressway to the (otherwise closed) SI landfill. The twisted metal beams, the flag in the background, the grey, gloomy winter sky... a simple, fitting memorial.

January 16th, 2008

Ahh, another day with Evan. Always fun and enjoyable. And exhausting! Lots of running around and playing with cars when that munchkin is around. In his quieter moments, brief as they may be, he loves to play with his mommy's hair. He pets it, pulls it, wraps it around his own head... it's a rather silly sight. He even hugs her ponytail, when he can get to it...


I think it's a texture thing (many babies love the feel of hair), and also an affection thing. He doesn't go around hugging strangers' hair, thank goodness. He just loves his mama so much! For me, I love that he goes around calling my name when I'm not around, looking for me, missing me, and "Bri-Bri," too. I am loved! :)

January 15th, 2008

I still need to get down the camera settings that let a subject be in clear focus, while the background blurs. Because really, the point of this photo is to show how silly Brian looks in his lacrosse/broomball helmet and under-gear... and not to show how messy our office space is.

January 14th, 2008

How often do you get to look *down* through the branches of a tree? Thought this was a pretty unique angle on things...



(The bright orange stripe just visible through the lower branches is from a Nassau County bus below.)

January 13th, 2008

COOKIE PORN!

I even put them on a "real" plate, just for this photo. Is anyone else hungry??

January 12th, 2008

Spent the day scrapbooking - woo! It was great to have a day to focus solely on creative play. Worked on my Week in the Life album - been plugging away at that in bits since last August's class with Ali Edwards, and the photos date back to July '07. Trying hard not to feel like I have to "catch up" - as Ali says, "It is ok."

Here's a quick shot of my table space at the crop. Got the book open, the instruction/guide out, and all the products in easy reach. Perfect.


Definitely want to get this completed one of these days...

January 11th, 2008

In addition to the half-filled boxes lined up (and featured in an earlier post), I've got these packed up and ready to go.

Okay, so it's not really a very good photo, but at least it shows why I'm in no hurry to invite friends into my living room right now...

January 10th, 2008

It's been so lovely out that I decided to go for a walk in the park near my parents' house. The playground parts are totally changed since I last played there, a million years ago. Back then, everything was old, weathered wood and scratchy concrete, a playground in shades of brown and grey. (And probably a lawsuit waiting to happen, now that I'm thinking about the giant splinters that peeled off underfoot and the way the wooden towers swayed on windy days) Now, the playground is bright and obviously designed with an eye on safety - a far cry from what I remember.

But the rest of the park looks much the same. Grass (withered and muddy now that it's winter), trees, a few benches and picnic tables, and then the lake. Or the pond. Or the inlet, probably. In any case, the water - across which, you can see the control tower for JFK Airport. When I was a teenager, my friends and I would sit by the water and watch the planes take off and land until it grew dark and the police chased us off to close up the park. I loved that.


A little reminiscing and a few quick photos (including the one above), in spite of the wind kicking up from the water, making my eyes tear as I tried to line up a shot of an incoming plane. It was a nice interlude in the middle of my day. Half an hour or so of playground-and-plane watching, then back to my regularly scheduled programming...

January 9th, 2008: Brian's Birthday

Behold, Brian's birthday dinner...



Yep, that was pretty much all for him... except for a single cucumber roll, which made its way onto *my* plate. Trust me, it's possible to over-indulge in sushi!

On the other hand, I've discovered I like taking pictures of sushi. So many pretty colors... It's more fun than eating it!

January 8th, 2008

Look at that face.


He is so darn cute, I could just *squee*! I had a good time chasing Evan around mom and dad's house for a few hours this evening. Got tackled and taken down to the floor, had my toes run over, had my shins crashed into, and even had a somewhat slimy, pre-tasted pretzel popped in my mouth. Oh, yum. Y'know, when I stop to think about it, it's rather surprising that I consider this all to be "fun." :) But I just can't resist those baby blues!

January 7th, 2008

Did some reading today - my first new book of the new year. It seems I chose well when I picked up Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns. Splendid indeed. The book was excellent - I wasn't intending to read much, just a few pages this morning, a taste, if you will... the next thing I knew, I was turning the final page.

Not necessarily the kind of book I'd pick up on a regular basis, as my taste for historical fiction runs to the Elizabethan era and before, and this was about far more recent history. Specifically, the story gives a very immediate, personal take on the violent history (and misogyny) of Afghanistan over the past three decades. Not a time and place I know well, in spite of its presence in the news for the last several years. Truth be told, it's a history I know by the very barest of bones; in my mind, I hold an image of Soviet tanks rolling through city streets, National Geographic's girl with startlingly green eyes, and the sketchiest notion of just how completely the Taliban suppressed women's rights. This book filled in some of my blanks, and held me riveted as it did so.


Now I've gotta back up and read his first book, The Kite Runner. I understand that's just as good. Meanwhile, this one's worth revisiting down the line. I will definitely have to re-read.

January 6th, 2008

This is what happens when you ask a small child to smile for the camera. No sweet smiles... just silly scowls. Oops.

This was right after Naomi handed Brian her squeezy blue fishie and went to give me a princess to play with. Good sharing. :) We spent the afternoon at Ethan's apartment, with Masako and little Naomi and a few other friends, to celebrate the Giants' postseason appearance as well as Brian's and Ethan's birthdays. Getting together = happy.

January 5th, 2008

This arrived on my doorstep as part of a box of goodies we bought for Evan. When I looked at the Disney site to find remote-controlled toys, I saw this, and found it so entertaining, I just couldn't resist.


Really, what can you say about a remote-controlled rat? I think this one speaks for itself...

January 4th, 2008

Took Mom to her appointment with the sinus doc... once again, it seems like another day, another doctor's office. Couldn't very well take pics in there, but I had my camera in tow, and snapped a few shots of the relatively quiet roads on the way back. Snapped this shot of what was right in front of me while I waited in the car for Mom to pick some stuff up at the Vitamin Shoppe over by Green Acres Mall. Two years into my current lease, and I *still* love my Jeep!

January 3rd, 2008

I can't really tell you what direction our house faces. South-something-or-other, I suppose, since the front of the house is filled with light all day, while the back bedrooms stay cooler, more shadowy. In the afternoons, sunlight slants in through the windows on the "left" side of the house (office, bathroom, kitchen), making the windows, and anything laying directly within the beams, glow. Given winter's short days, this soft golden glow is early and brief, and often missing entirely, as the sun is obscured by clouds. So when the sunlight came pouring through the windows this day, I tried to capture it, to catch (and keep) the glow.



I've got a lot to learn about how to photograph tricks of the light, but I kinda like the way the sun played off the glass, Coke, and bright red caps of these bottles (sitting on our kitchen butcher block). Kinda cool.

in a word (2008)

I’ve been percolating for some time now, trying to let my thoughts bubble until the perfect “one little word” for 2008 rises to the top. After much thought, I’m realizing that it’s hard to come up with just one word around which to build my year. I wanted to start with a verb, an action I can carry out and prove I’ve done. I’d wanted to have a word that reflected my hopes for the world around me, as well as for myself. I’ve considered peace, simplify, balance, consciousness… all good words, and ones worth focusing on, at that. But none are quite ringing true as my one word for the next 360+ days.

The phrase, “Life’s a journey, not a destination,” keeps flashing into my mind as I debate. How true. Sometimes I focus so much of my energies and efforts on the end result, my mental, physical, or emotional “destination,” I forget to consider the steps I take to get there. I forget to appreciate my starting point, too. That’s a lot of moments missed, a lot of present lost to thoughts of the future, a lot of places passed by unseen. I want to own a home (and therefore do not always appreciate the one we rent now). I want to teach scrapbooking classes (and therefore stress over the completion of samples instead of enjoying my play with paper and glue). I want to see my husband’s bad habits change (and therefore fail to show him that I love who he already is).

I don’t want to keep my mind so set on where I’m going that I miss the opportunities to do, feel, and be good along the way. I want to take pleasure in the journey of my life.

So I think that this year, I will try to keep my focus less on my destinations and more on appreciating the paths I take to get there. The journey.

January 2nd, 2008

I really like catching a glimpse of the bins where I keep my completed (and partially-completed) scrapbooks, tucked behind the couch in the living room. Such a lovely burst of color peeking out from the neutral brown bins and couch. I love that I get both easy access to my memories, and a bit of decorative appeal!

January 1st, 2008

I don't remember where I read this, but I once came upon some sage advice for ringing in a new year. Essentially, the suggestion was that you should start a new year the way you want the whole year to be; do the things you most love and want to do more of in the future. This year, I took that advice to heart. Brian and I spent New Year's Eve with family - Staci, Brad, and 21-month-old Evan. Ate yummy food, made the baby screech with happiness, even built a gingerbread house on the kitchen floor (a first for me)! We worked together to do a good thing for our parents, whose house we had chosen for our low-key festivities; we cleaned the old (expired around 2002 old) food from their fridge. Even took pictures of some of the really nasty things. Ew. A terrific blend of relaxation and good work, hopefully starting our 2008 karma on the good side of the balance.

Then, the two of us had a quiet, relaxing New Year's Day - slept in 'til 10am, hung around the house in our pj's, dreamed about a summer trip to Europe, and left the dirty dishes to be dealt with another day. Totally satisfying. However, we did another good deed. We sorted through all the for-the-troops donations given to us by Paul and Emily. Their generosity had seemed a little overwhelming; in their zeal, they gave us things we knew we couldn't send abroad. Some of the many books they'd given us got sorted finally into boxes, to form the basis of packages I'll top off with soldiers' other requests.

These are some of those boxes, lined up in front of the tv, waiting to be filled the rest of the way and sent to bring a bit of comfort and a sense of home to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.